MANILA – The selection of the decommissioned oil tanker BRP Lake Caliraya for a sinking exercise as part of this year's Balikatan exercises between Filipino and American soldiers is coincidental, a ranking official of the Philippine Navy (PN) said Tuesday.
PN spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad made the remark after China called the act provocative.
In an April 20 editorial, China's state-run English newspaper Global Times claimed that the BRP Lake Caliraya was built in a Chinese shipyard for the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC), which it called "a witness to previous cooperation between China and the Philippines."
The PNOC donated the BRP Lake Caliraya, formerly known as M/T Lapulapu, to the Navy in 2014.
Meanwhile, PN flag-officer-in-command Vice Adm. Toribio Adaci Jr. said he does not see anything wrong with the move.
"There’s no issue with that. The vessel has been used in the Philippines (for a) long long time so any attachment to China—if ever there’s any—it doesn’t matter at all,” Adaci said in a press briefing at the Navy headquarters in Manila.
He also added that it is customary to use decommissioned Navy ships in "any ship sinking activity conducted" in any part of the world.
Meanwhile, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) reported that 124 assorted Chinese ships were monitored in seven features of the West Philippine Sea (WPS) from April 16 to 22.
These include 110 so-called "Chinese Maritime Militia Vessels" (CMMVs), 11 China Coast Guard Vessels (CCGVs) and three ships from the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).
Out of this number, seven CCGVs and 31 CMMVs were off Bajo de Masinloc (also known as Scarborough Shoal); three CCGVs and 28 CMMVs detected off Ayungin Shoal; one PLAN vessel, one CCGV, and 44 CCMVs off Pagasa Island; three CMMVs off Parola Island; one PLAN vessel off Lawak Island; four CMMVs off Panata Island and one PLAN in Patag Island.
In the same briefing, Trinidad said the upsurge in the numbers of the CMMVs coincided with Monday's opening of the annual "Balikatan" exercise between the AFP and US military forces.
In the previous weeks, he said there were only around 50 to 110 Chinese vessels sighted in the WPS.
"So there is a surge in the presence of maritime militia specifically in Bajo de Masinloc and Pagasa,” he added. (PNA)
